A quick Turkmen vocabulary lesson for you: Baydak (Buy-dock) means flag and Bayram (Buy-rom) means holiday. Using your new vocabulary, you now know that the Baydak Bayram on February 19th was… that’s right! The Flag Holiday! Good job, way to know Turkmen.
Basically it was an event very similar to how most Americans celebrate Memorial and Labor Day. Just a good reason to get off of work, and laze around with friends and family. I was planning on putting some heavy effort into the “lazing” but it seemed that Shukerjan had other plans for me. She came rolling into my bedroom (while I was in the middle of watching the quality cinematic production of “Dunston Checks In” on my computer) and asked me how much dirty laundry I had. I briefly considered lying, since I was pretty sure she intended for me to wash some of it if I admitted to having any, but in the end told her that I had “a little”.
In truth, “a little” was actually more like the Mount Everest of dirty clothes, all piled up on my wardrobe’s floor. I hate washing laundry by hand, like really really HATE it. I’m not good at it, it takes me forever, my clothes never seem like they get clean anyways, and my legs always hurt from squatting in front of the laundry washtub for three hours. My level of dislike for the activity had led me to avoidance of it for more than two months, and the only clothing I had washed since coming to Dashoguz was the absolute necessary quantity of socks and underwear. Even this was a task I was only willing to participate in once my last clean pair of underwear was actually on my body. Don’t judge me, you haven’t had to wash laundry without a machine. You’d be surprised at how “clean” something can seem when you’ve only worn it three times and you want nothing to do with hand-washing it. The worst is washing jeans. They soak up so much water, and they are soooo heavy when you’re trying to wring them out. I actually have fantasies involving a washing machine with a spin cycle while I am washing my jeans… Aaah, if only.
Back to the current issue: Shukerjan’s assessment of my dirty laundry collection. Upon my admission of a small amount of grimy garments, she immediately detected my lie, and simply opened my closet doors to see for herself. After briefly glancing at my heap, she told me we were going to wash my clothes. All of them. Right now. Oh brother.
Many many hours later (since one simply does not argue with Shukerjan), I was the proud owner of one water-wrinkled and sore pair of hands, and a huge clothesline filled with my dripping (but clean) clothing. I thought I was going to faint from exhaustion. I never realized how good I had it with my Maytag in the states. Easily the most difficult part of laundry doing with Shukerjan (besides the fact that she insists that I actually do it), was the differing view of where clean underwear should be left to dry. I was of the opinion that it would be perfectly fine to dry in my bedroom, draped over the heater, behind closed doors and away from prying eyes. Shukerjan was appalled and insisted that it would never get dry if I kept it in the house, that it simply had to be put outdoors to dry effectively. This would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that our clothesline is in the front of our house, which happens to face the biggest road in our village. Shukerjan won, and all twenty-some-odd pairs of my unattractive granny panty-style underwear were thrown up on the line, in full view of the neighbors, anyone who happened to be driving by, and of course the teenage boys who were playing in the field across the street. It was like a line of hideous flags bowing in the breeze; a salute to the corpulent posterior of the American living within. I stayed in hiding for the remainder of the day, unable to face the neighborhood now that they know what I am wearing under my koynek.
Even though the weather almost seemed to resemble spring on the flag holiday (warm wind, melting snow), Mother Nature was apparently not in the mood to grant Dashoguz a winter weather reprieve just yet. Thursday morning dawned in a shroud of snow, wind, and general blizzardiness. This was incredibly unpleasant, especially considering that our car chose that particular morning to cease functioning, meaning Shukerjan and I had to walk the forty-five minutes to the clinic. I thought my feet were going to fall off.
Friday morning dawned in a similar state, if possible, I think it was even more nasty than Thursday. My little village was in the full throes of a blizzard. Lame. I could only hope that Saturday morning would be better since I was planning to travel into the city (via taxi, gulp!) to meet with the other health volunteers Saturday. With the taxis’ track records of winter driving, I could think of nothing less pleasant than being a passenger while sideways snow obscured the driver’s vision of the road. The good news is that I got my wish. The blizzard came to an abrupt halt around midnight Friday night, leaving in its wake approximately a foot of snow to show for its efforts. No wind, no snow, just peace and quiet, surrounded by a gorgeously whitened landscape. It seemed that my taxi trip may turn out to be pleasant after all. Or maybe not.
I crawled out of bed Saturday morning with a great deal of excitement for my upcoming meeting, as well as an extremely full bladder. I rushed out the backdoor, intent on getting to our outhouse as quickly as possible to rectify the situation. Upon bursting forth into the great outdoors, I found myself in a state of shock as I was immediately surrounded by white. Everywhere. White white white, no sign of the outhouse, no sign of the door I had just stepped from, not even a sign of the hand that I knew I was holding in front of my face. It was the thickest fog I had ever seen in my life, and it was everywhere. I had to shuffle along like a little old lady, cautiously placing one foot in front of the other just to get to the bathroom. If there hadn’t been a brick path for me to follow, I could very well have ended up peeing in the cows’ water trough. It was that difficult to see.
It was going to be a terrifying taxi ride into the city.
Needless to say, I made it to Dashoguz city with my life, but it was only by the grace of God. People are insane drivers in this country. Insane. Why would you try to pass a line of five cars, when you can’t even see if there is any traffic in the oncoming lane. Seriously? There is nothing worth that kind of hurry (with the exception of life, death, and half-off sales at Nordstroms).
It turned out that my scary drive was well worth it. I had the most amazing day with the other volunteers. It was Jon’s birthday, so we all had a celebratory breakfast together at Alice’s house, which included home made doughnuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles on them. It was heaven in edible form. It was nice to see some of the volunteers that I hadn’t run into since we had parted at Christmas time, and it made me realize again how great the people in Dashoguz are. I really like the volunteers in my weleyat. They pretty much rock.
After breakfast, Alice, Gahmya, Noah, and myself proceeded to have our first official Dashoguz health volunteer meeting. It was so amazing. I hadn’t really talked to Gahmya before Saturday, and didn’t know what to expect from her. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that she turned out to be an amazing resource. She told us about all of the projects she had been working on over the past year in her village, as well as some of the projects she had coming up. It was so inspiring to talk to someone who clearly loved the work she was doing as a health volunteer. I could hardly take notes fast enough to keep up with all of the great advice she was giving us.
I left the city that day as a happy human being. My tummy was full of doughnuts, and my mind had had just gotten the jumpstart it had needed to look at my work in Gok Chage with the right perspective. After talking with Gahmya, I was determined to be an amazing volunteer. No more sitting around, waiting for projects to fall into my lap, bemoaning the cold and homesickness I was experiencing. It was time to get to work… Now I just had to figure out what work I was going to get to.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Week of Brain Sausage
So my family let me try a tasty Turkmen delicacy this week. They take everything inside of a cow head (yeah, I really do mean everything: tongue, eyeballs, brain, cartilage… everything), chop it up into little cubes, then they put it in a big pot and boil it for a few hours. After its all soupy, they pour it into molds (usually empty soda bottles with the tops cut off), and they will let it set for a few hours while it cools. Once it has cooled off, it hardens into this gelatinous blob of chunks in a variety of brown and red shades. They take it out of its mold, and you have brain sausage. Bon apetit!
My mom raised me to “take a polite bite” of anything someone set in front of me, and I could hear her voice ringing in my ears as I looked at the quivering mass of cow setting in front of me at the table. I actually managed to eat an entire slice of it- with a straight face. That was it, I very politely told my family that once piece per day was my non-vomit-inducing limit. And in case you were wondering, it tastes a lot like really salty spam. This leads me to wonder what exactly spam is made out of…
Bagila is gone again this week. She had to go to a conference in Ashgabat about tuberculosis, and she won’t be back until the end of the month. Sad. The only plus side to her multiple periods of absentia is that they really force me to get to know everyone in my clinic instead of just relying solely on her for support. I really do miss her though.
Valentines Day passed without any fanfare. It’s a little hard to get used to the fact that Turkmen don’t celebrate the same holidays I do. I knew they wouldn’t when I came here, but its somehow slightly different when you actually look at the calendar and realize that there was a holiday the day before and you failed to even notice its passing due to the lack of celebration around you. I’m sure I’ll get used to it as time passes, it will just make me appreciate the ridiculous levels of commercialism in America that much more when I come home. And to be fair, my mom totally sent me a valentine that got here on time. Way to go Mom.
In other news, it snowed this week, twice! Six inches in total. When I came to Turkmenistan, everyone really emphasized the fact that it was a desert, and how hot it was in the summers, but no one really remembered to mention the winter qualities. To be fair, the locals are telling me that this is the most brutal winter they’ve seen since the 1960s, so I guess that makes this proliferation of snow, ice, and frost rather abnormal. Apparently I managed to bring Alaska with me, and it didn’t even take up any extra room in my suitcase.
I went into the city to visit Alice for the day on Friday (the first day it snowed this week), and quite honestly saw my life flash before my eyes on more than one occasion during my cab ride. Turkmen are frightening winter drivers. To be more specific, Turkmen are frightening drivers, period. They are big fans of passing in places where no one in their right mind would try to pass. They also like to play with their car stereos instead of looking at the road, and their favorite thing to do is try to carry on a conversation with the American in the back seat, while not looking forward to the road AT ALL. Add icy roads and whiteout snow to this and you’ve really got a recipe for success. Or an aneurism. Whichever.
The good news is that I made it into the city in one piece. I was really excited because in addition to getting a care package in the mail, and buying some tasty cookies at the bazaar, my FAMILY called me at Alice’s house! This may not sound like that big of a cause for celebration, but calling me, and actually getting hold of me in this country, from America, is quite an event. Now that I don’t have a telephone at my house, I have to rely on the charity of other volunteers who actually have phones at their homes that my family can call. I then have to cross my fingers that the phone in question will actually be working on the day I arrange for my family to call me on it, and I have to pray that none of their family members will be in the middle of using it at the established call time. On top of all of that, I have to hope the circuits aren’t too busy so that my family’s call will actually be able to get through when they place it. Now that you understand what all goes into it, you can see why I almost wet my pants when I heard the voices of my mom and dad and Hillary (Andrea had apparently left for a trip to Norway the week before).
After talking to them for more than an hour, I was on cloud nine. You’d be surprised at how much you crave hearing familiar voices. After seeing my euphoric state resulting from domestic dialogue, Alice also really wanted to hear from her family, so we asked my parents to call them and let them know Alice wanted to talk to them and was waiting by the phone. My dad was a little nervous about calling someone who didn’t really know him (especially since it was almost midnight), but Alice and I assured him that as a fellow Peace Corps Turkmenistan parent, he would be welcomed with open arms… if that were possible on the phone. Sure enough, less than twenty minutes after hanging up with my parents, the phone rang again and it was Alice’s family. I really love it when things work out.
Besides city trips and brain sausage, the week was fairly uneventful. I have to learn to be a little less independent than I was in America. It’s a difficult transition. Whenever I go anywhere or do anything in Turkmenistan, I have to tell at least three different people where and when I’m going, how long I’ll be there, and exactly when I’ll be back. Usually I need to tell them all of this information at least a week before the event actually occurs, and there is no such thing as changing my plans mid way through the event since there are no phones in my village for me to call anyone on to inform them of the altered game plan. Considering the fact that I am 24 years old, and in no way accustomed to such tight control on my comings and goings, it has been a challenge to keep my blood pressure in check on several occasions.
Most recently it was the disco. There is going to be a big 80s night (yeah, like American 80s music!) at the disco in Dashoguz City next Friday night, and I really want to go. I figured it would work out perfectly because I am already planning on being in the city Saturday morning for our big health-volunteer collaboration, so why not come in the night before, go to the disco, then just sleep over afterwards at one of the city volunteer’s houses? It made perfect sense to me. Especially because I really really wanted to go out dancing with the other volunteers at the disco.
I told Shukerjan about my plan, and she initially said it sounded fine as long as I remembered to give her contact information for how to find me in case of an emergency. A few days after she’d said yes, she reneged, and told me I wasn’t going to be able to go. Something about a policy…
This would probably be the appropriate time to fess up to the fact that Shukerjan was actually mostly in the right for putting the nix on my grand disco adventure. There is technically a Peace Corps policy that says new volunteers may not sleep “outside of their community” for their first 90 days of service. It’s meant to keep us safe since the assumption is that it will probably take us about three months to fully acclimate to our new surroundings. In my disco-crazed state, I was willing to skew the meaning of the policy far enough to consider Dashoguz city part of “my community”, but Shukerjan wasn’t buying it. She told me that I was housebound next Friday night, and that it really was for my own good. I was mainly pissed because I knew she was right, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. How dare she be a responsible host-parent? You’d think she actually cared about me, or something…
My mom raised me to “take a polite bite” of anything someone set in front of me, and I could hear her voice ringing in my ears as I looked at the quivering mass of cow setting in front of me at the table. I actually managed to eat an entire slice of it- with a straight face. That was it, I very politely told my family that once piece per day was my non-vomit-inducing limit. And in case you were wondering, it tastes a lot like really salty spam. This leads me to wonder what exactly spam is made out of…
Bagila is gone again this week. She had to go to a conference in Ashgabat about tuberculosis, and she won’t be back until the end of the month. Sad. The only plus side to her multiple periods of absentia is that they really force me to get to know everyone in my clinic instead of just relying solely on her for support. I really do miss her though.
Valentines Day passed without any fanfare. It’s a little hard to get used to the fact that Turkmen don’t celebrate the same holidays I do. I knew they wouldn’t when I came here, but its somehow slightly different when you actually look at the calendar and realize that there was a holiday the day before and you failed to even notice its passing due to the lack of celebration around you. I’m sure I’ll get used to it as time passes, it will just make me appreciate the ridiculous levels of commercialism in America that much more when I come home. And to be fair, my mom totally sent me a valentine that got here on time. Way to go Mom.
In other news, it snowed this week, twice! Six inches in total. When I came to Turkmenistan, everyone really emphasized the fact that it was a desert, and how hot it was in the summers, but no one really remembered to mention the winter qualities. To be fair, the locals are telling me that this is the most brutal winter they’ve seen since the 1960s, so I guess that makes this proliferation of snow, ice, and frost rather abnormal. Apparently I managed to bring Alaska with me, and it didn’t even take up any extra room in my suitcase.
I went into the city to visit Alice for the day on Friday (the first day it snowed this week), and quite honestly saw my life flash before my eyes on more than one occasion during my cab ride. Turkmen are frightening winter drivers. To be more specific, Turkmen are frightening drivers, period. They are big fans of passing in places where no one in their right mind would try to pass. They also like to play with their car stereos instead of looking at the road, and their favorite thing to do is try to carry on a conversation with the American in the back seat, while not looking forward to the road AT ALL. Add icy roads and whiteout snow to this and you’ve really got a recipe for success. Or an aneurism. Whichever.
The good news is that I made it into the city in one piece. I was really excited because in addition to getting a care package in the mail, and buying some tasty cookies at the bazaar, my FAMILY called me at Alice’s house! This may not sound like that big of a cause for celebration, but calling me, and actually getting hold of me in this country, from America, is quite an event. Now that I don’t have a telephone at my house, I have to rely on the charity of other volunteers who actually have phones at their homes that my family can call. I then have to cross my fingers that the phone in question will actually be working on the day I arrange for my family to call me on it, and I have to pray that none of their family members will be in the middle of using it at the established call time. On top of all of that, I have to hope the circuits aren’t too busy so that my family’s call will actually be able to get through when they place it. Now that you understand what all goes into it, you can see why I almost wet my pants when I heard the voices of my mom and dad and Hillary (Andrea had apparently left for a trip to Norway the week before).
After talking to them for more than an hour, I was on cloud nine. You’d be surprised at how much you crave hearing familiar voices. After seeing my euphoric state resulting from domestic dialogue, Alice also really wanted to hear from her family, so we asked my parents to call them and let them know Alice wanted to talk to them and was waiting by the phone. My dad was a little nervous about calling someone who didn’t really know him (especially since it was almost midnight), but Alice and I assured him that as a fellow Peace Corps Turkmenistan parent, he would be welcomed with open arms… if that were possible on the phone. Sure enough, less than twenty minutes after hanging up with my parents, the phone rang again and it was Alice’s family. I really love it when things work out.
Besides city trips and brain sausage, the week was fairly uneventful. I have to learn to be a little less independent than I was in America. It’s a difficult transition. Whenever I go anywhere or do anything in Turkmenistan, I have to tell at least three different people where and when I’m going, how long I’ll be there, and exactly when I’ll be back. Usually I need to tell them all of this information at least a week before the event actually occurs, and there is no such thing as changing my plans mid way through the event since there are no phones in my village for me to call anyone on to inform them of the altered game plan. Considering the fact that I am 24 years old, and in no way accustomed to such tight control on my comings and goings, it has been a challenge to keep my blood pressure in check on several occasions.
Most recently it was the disco. There is going to be a big 80s night (yeah, like American 80s music!) at the disco in Dashoguz City next Friday night, and I really want to go. I figured it would work out perfectly because I am already planning on being in the city Saturday morning for our big health-volunteer collaboration, so why not come in the night before, go to the disco, then just sleep over afterwards at one of the city volunteer’s houses? It made perfect sense to me. Especially because I really really wanted to go out dancing with the other volunteers at the disco.
I told Shukerjan about my plan, and she initially said it sounded fine as long as I remembered to give her contact information for how to find me in case of an emergency. A few days after she’d said yes, she reneged, and told me I wasn’t going to be able to go. Something about a policy…
This would probably be the appropriate time to fess up to the fact that Shukerjan was actually mostly in the right for putting the nix on my grand disco adventure. There is technically a Peace Corps policy that says new volunteers may not sleep “outside of their community” for their first 90 days of service. It’s meant to keep us safe since the assumption is that it will probably take us about three months to fully acclimate to our new surroundings. In my disco-crazed state, I was willing to skew the meaning of the policy far enough to consider Dashoguz city part of “my community”, but Shukerjan wasn’t buying it. She told me that I was housebound next Friday night, and that it really was for my own good. I was mainly pissed because I knew she was right, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. How dare she be a responsible host-parent? You’d think she actually cared about me, or something…
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Week of Being Careful What You Wish For (Part 2)
After the unfortunate fiasco at the school on Tuesday, Wednesday dawned with the distinct possibility of redemption. It couldn’t really get any worse, right? Ha.
While we had been on patronage the day prior, Shukerjan had been busy recruiting new mothers for my class on breastfeeding Wednesday morning. I had given up on my fetal development stages, figuring the lesson wasn’t meant to be, after resulting in no-shows for three weeks running. I was all ready to make breastfeeding class riveting. I had stuffed animals to practice positions with, a huge picture of a breast with all of the parts labeled, and a nice long story to read to my class about a mother who didn’t breastfeed correctly, and the resulting calamity. Stuffed animals, boobs, and story time! Who wouldn’t want to come to my class?
Class was scheduled to start at ten, and when only one woman had shown up by 10:10, I figured it was time to get my show on the road. At least one person wanted to hang out with me, right? My “student” was a very very pregnant young woman (eight and a half months along) in her early twenties who was on baby number two. As I began showing her the proper breastfeeding positions with my stuffed bunny, I handed her a teddy bear to practice with. She looked at me as if I had suggested she dive headfirst off a high cliff, and instead set the teddy bear down on the table next to her. I decided it was time to move along to the big breast picture. This actually managed to go even worse than the teddy. As soon as she saw the gigantic nipple looming up out of the distance, she turned red and averted her eyes, refusing to look at it. I was beginning to sense the possibility that I misjudged the cultural views on modesty…
As I was frantically trying to think of a way to take my presentation from PG-13 down to a G rating, my student suddenly got a horrible expression on her face, clapped her hand over her mouth, and ran from the room. I heard her retching in the hallway sink. I must say, I was expecting a slightly different reaction to my class. She didn’t come back in. Shocker. I was so sure she’d been waiting on the edge of her seat to see what exciting activity we were going to do next. I spent the rest of the day re-writing my breastfeeding lesson plan to include far fewer visuals, and a lot more anti-nausea medication.
The rest of the week included quite a bit of visiting. I met my next-door neighbors, who invited me in for tea and fresh bread with homemade watermelon jelly. (jealous?) I also went to the next village over to visit Bagila at her family’s house. I wound up sleeping over and had a lot of fun. We stayed up until almost 1am (this is very very late for me now!) watching music videos and looking at pictures. It kind of reminded me of the sleepovers I used to have in seventh grade… except we didn’t dare each other to lick the toilet seat or run outside in only our underwear. What can I say, we were party poopers.
My family took me to see Koneurgench (cone-er-gench) on Sunday. This is the big ruin site in Dashoguz, apparently it has a lot of historical significance, or something… Someone who has internet access on a regular basis should look it up and tell me why its important, because I feel like I should know, but there’s only books about it in Russian and Turkmen, and to be honest, I don’t know either language well enough to figure out what the deal is. It looks pretty cool though.
There were a series of mausoleums and a really tall minaret, all of them from a long time ago. They were beautiful, and I was surprised at how well a lot of the colored tiles had survived on the domes on top of the mausoleums. The only down side was that the weather was still pretty cold, and I could only walk around the ruin sites for so long before my feet went numb. Note to self: come back and look at things longer when the temperature is back to somewhat bearably normal.
I also got to see Julia, the Peace Corps volunteer who is stationed in Koneurgench. It was the first time I’d seen her since Christmas, and I was happy to see that she was doing well. I was also happy to see that she had also given in and purchased one of the expensive long wool coats with fur cuffs. They really are super pretty. I swear.
While we had been on patronage the day prior, Shukerjan had been busy recruiting new mothers for my class on breastfeeding Wednesday morning. I had given up on my fetal development stages, figuring the lesson wasn’t meant to be, after resulting in no-shows for three weeks running. I was all ready to make breastfeeding class riveting. I had stuffed animals to practice positions with, a huge picture of a breast with all of the parts labeled, and a nice long story to read to my class about a mother who didn’t breastfeed correctly, and the resulting calamity. Stuffed animals, boobs, and story time! Who wouldn’t want to come to my class?
Class was scheduled to start at ten, and when only one woman had shown up by 10:10, I figured it was time to get my show on the road. At least one person wanted to hang out with me, right? My “student” was a very very pregnant young woman (eight and a half months along) in her early twenties who was on baby number two. As I began showing her the proper breastfeeding positions with my stuffed bunny, I handed her a teddy bear to practice with. She looked at me as if I had suggested she dive headfirst off a high cliff, and instead set the teddy bear down on the table next to her. I decided it was time to move along to the big breast picture. This actually managed to go even worse than the teddy. As soon as she saw the gigantic nipple looming up out of the distance, she turned red and averted her eyes, refusing to look at it. I was beginning to sense the possibility that I misjudged the cultural views on modesty…
As I was frantically trying to think of a way to take my presentation from PG-13 down to a G rating, my student suddenly got a horrible expression on her face, clapped her hand over her mouth, and ran from the room. I heard her retching in the hallway sink. I must say, I was expecting a slightly different reaction to my class. She didn’t come back in. Shocker. I was so sure she’d been waiting on the edge of her seat to see what exciting activity we were going to do next. I spent the rest of the day re-writing my breastfeeding lesson plan to include far fewer visuals, and a lot more anti-nausea medication.
The rest of the week included quite a bit of visiting. I met my next-door neighbors, who invited me in for tea and fresh bread with homemade watermelon jelly. (jealous?) I also went to the next village over to visit Bagila at her family’s house. I wound up sleeping over and had a lot of fun. We stayed up until almost 1am (this is very very late for me now!) watching music videos and looking at pictures. It kind of reminded me of the sleepovers I used to have in seventh grade… except we didn’t dare each other to lick the toilet seat or run outside in only our underwear. What can I say, we were party poopers.
My family took me to see Koneurgench (cone-er-gench) on Sunday. This is the big ruin site in Dashoguz, apparently it has a lot of historical significance, or something… Someone who has internet access on a regular basis should look it up and tell me why its important, because I feel like I should know, but there’s only books about it in Russian and Turkmen, and to be honest, I don’t know either language well enough to figure out what the deal is. It looks pretty cool though.
There were a series of mausoleums and a really tall minaret, all of them from a long time ago. They were beautiful, and I was surprised at how well a lot of the colored tiles had survived on the domes on top of the mausoleums. The only down side was that the weather was still pretty cold, and I could only walk around the ruin sites for so long before my feet went numb. Note to self: come back and look at things longer when the temperature is back to somewhat bearably normal.
I also got to see Julia, the Peace Corps volunteer who is stationed in Koneurgench. It was the first time I’d seen her since Christmas, and I was happy to see that she was doing well. I was also happy to see that she had also given in and purchased one of the expensive long wool coats with fur cuffs. They really are super pretty. I swear.
The Week of Being Careful What You Wish For (Part 1)
So I’m really starting to adjust better to living here. At first the lack of communication and the isolation were killing me, mainly I think because I wasn’t really expecting them. Now that I know what I’m working with, I’m beginning to figure out how to cope, and as a result, things aren’t so hard anymore. I would say I’m actually starting to enjoy being here.
Bagila came back on Monday and I was surprised at how happy I was to see her. Don’t get me wrong, I have always enjoyed Bagila’s company, but I didn’t realize how much I had bonded with her until she came back from her break and I felt like she’d been gone for years even though it was only a month.
This Tuesday started out very excitedly. I got to work and Shukerjan told me that I needed to grab my dental health lesson supplies because we were going to the school. I was so shocked, we were actually GOING? To the school? To teach? I was suddenly a little nervous. What if my lesson bombed after all of the waiting I’d been doing to teach it? I had little time for further pondering as Shukerjan dragged me out of the door and over to the school. We got there and the director told me that there currently weren’t any students to teach. Oh my, what a surprise. No students you say (again)? I couldn’t imagine… I was getting ready to accept defeat and as I was turning around, he asked me if I would be able to come back at 2pm, because there would be students then. I was shocked and elated, and walked out of his office thrilled with the prospect of my upcoming lesson.
Shukerjan took me on patronage to pass the time between then and two o’clock. I am fairly certain I’ve mentioned this term before, but just incase you’ve forgotten, patronage is how the Turkmen refer to a series of home visits by a doctor. In Turkmen medical culture, it’s far more common for a patient to have a doctor come to him or her, than to go to the doctors themselves. Shukerjan and I popped in on half a dozen Turkmen families and measured their babies, blood pressures, and other assorted odds and ends.
Another interesting aspect to “patronaja gitmek” (aka: going on patronage) is the food. I don’t know what it is, but Turkmen cannot stand to see someone not eating in their house, I think it makes them uncomfortable or something. When the doctors and nurses come on patronage, there is this frenzy of force-feeding that occurs. Tea and cookies is a given, and its considered rude if you don’t partake in those at the very least, but then they bring out the eggs, the soup, the cow parts, the bread, the fried food, the macaroni, and sometimes even a few rounds of vodka. Oh my goodness. I have a hard time going on patronage because after the first few houses you practically have to roll me out the door I’m so full.
So Shukerjan and I were in the middle of a medical-visit/meal combo in a home near to our clinic when one of the clinic’s doctors came running over and told Shukerjan that she needed to come to the clinic right away. When we got there, there was a big group of people from the overseeing hospital in the next city over and they were all waiting to do a shot audit. What is a shot audit, you ask? I can’t be sure if this is what they actually call it, but basically it’s the head hospital making sure our little clinic has been doing its job.
A few weeks ago, there was a big campaign to get everyone vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. It was countrywide, and a huge deal. The shot auditors had come to walk door to door with our doctors and make sure that everyone one in each of their respective territories had actually been administered the vaccine, like our records said they had. I sensed tedium coming on. Longer story shorter, I walked around with the shot auditors and Shukerjan while we spot-checked the houses in Shukerjan and Bagila’s territory. Even though everything went well, I couldn’t help that feeling like I was a little kid who had cheated on my history exam and was now hoping not to get caught. It wasn’t even me who was supposed to have given the shots, and I was practically sweating bullets. Ah, vicarious guilt.
The shot-auditing went on for a good two and a half hours before Shukerjan informed the hospital’s representatives that we would now be heading over to the local school to watch the American teach. I was quite pleased to be heading to the school until I realized that the entire auditing crew was accompanying us. It’s okay, right? No big deal if a bunch of important people from the overseeing hospital watch me teach my very first health lesson in Turkmen. I’m sure I will do wonderfully… I hope.
I got to the school and walked into my classroom of first graders. They all stared at me as if I was some alien being, freshly arrived, but at least they seemed quiet and well behaved. I began to dig around in my bag to set up my posters for my lesson, and realized as I stared into my bag with a sinking heart that I had left a pile of pictures and lesson vocabulary (including the words to the brush your teeth song) on my desk back at work. Oh crap. Ummm, time for plan B: improvisation.
I proceeded to fake my way through my healthy teeth lesson with a lot of “ums” and enthusiasm, hoping it would compensate for my lack of materials and correct word choice. I’m not sure if it worked. There was a point where I was pointing to the picture of molars, asking the first graders “what is that?” repeatedly, while all of them gave me blank stares and refused to answer. The sad thing is that I was asking them because I didn’t know the word for molar, not because I was testing their knowledge. In the end I just used the word “molar” and hoped they got the general point. It definitely could have gone better. All I know is that when the hour was up, I felt a bit like a performing circus monkey who was ready to go on coffee break. How do teachers do this every day for six hours?
The shot auditors gave me smiles on the way out, but they were less like “way to go” smiles, and more like the sympathetic smile you would give someone who just fell down the stairs. Headfirst. Sigh. I am so good at impressing people in positions of authority. I see a great career as a Turkmen teacher in my future.
Maybe I’ll do better next time? I hope there is a next time.
Bagila came back on Monday and I was surprised at how happy I was to see her. Don’t get me wrong, I have always enjoyed Bagila’s company, but I didn’t realize how much I had bonded with her until she came back from her break and I felt like she’d been gone for years even though it was only a month.
This Tuesday started out very excitedly. I got to work and Shukerjan told me that I needed to grab my dental health lesson supplies because we were going to the school. I was so shocked, we were actually GOING? To the school? To teach? I was suddenly a little nervous. What if my lesson bombed after all of the waiting I’d been doing to teach it? I had little time for further pondering as Shukerjan dragged me out of the door and over to the school. We got there and the director told me that there currently weren’t any students to teach. Oh my, what a surprise. No students you say (again)? I couldn’t imagine… I was getting ready to accept defeat and as I was turning around, he asked me if I would be able to come back at 2pm, because there would be students then. I was shocked and elated, and walked out of his office thrilled with the prospect of my upcoming lesson.
Shukerjan took me on patronage to pass the time between then and two o’clock. I am fairly certain I’ve mentioned this term before, but just incase you’ve forgotten, patronage is how the Turkmen refer to a series of home visits by a doctor. In Turkmen medical culture, it’s far more common for a patient to have a doctor come to him or her, than to go to the doctors themselves. Shukerjan and I popped in on half a dozen Turkmen families and measured their babies, blood pressures, and other assorted odds and ends.
Another interesting aspect to “patronaja gitmek” (aka: going on patronage) is the food. I don’t know what it is, but Turkmen cannot stand to see someone not eating in their house, I think it makes them uncomfortable or something. When the doctors and nurses come on patronage, there is this frenzy of force-feeding that occurs. Tea and cookies is a given, and its considered rude if you don’t partake in those at the very least, but then they bring out the eggs, the soup, the cow parts, the bread, the fried food, the macaroni, and sometimes even a few rounds of vodka. Oh my goodness. I have a hard time going on patronage because after the first few houses you practically have to roll me out the door I’m so full.
So Shukerjan and I were in the middle of a medical-visit/meal combo in a home near to our clinic when one of the clinic’s doctors came running over and told Shukerjan that she needed to come to the clinic right away. When we got there, there was a big group of people from the overseeing hospital in the next city over and they were all waiting to do a shot audit. What is a shot audit, you ask? I can’t be sure if this is what they actually call it, but basically it’s the head hospital making sure our little clinic has been doing its job.
A few weeks ago, there was a big campaign to get everyone vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. It was countrywide, and a huge deal. The shot auditors had come to walk door to door with our doctors and make sure that everyone one in each of their respective territories had actually been administered the vaccine, like our records said they had. I sensed tedium coming on. Longer story shorter, I walked around with the shot auditors and Shukerjan while we spot-checked the houses in Shukerjan and Bagila’s territory. Even though everything went well, I couldn’t help that feeling like I was a little kid who had cheated on my history exam and was now hoping not to get caught. It wasn’t even me who was supposed to have given the shots, and I was practically sweating bullets. Ah, vicarious guilt.
The shot-auditing went on for a good two and a half hours before Shukerjan informed the hospital’s representatives that we would now be heading over to the local school to watch the American teach. I was quite pleased to be heading to the school until I realized that the entire auditing crew was accompanying us. It’s okay, right? No big deal if a bunch of important people from the overseeing hospital watch me teach my very first health lesson in Turkmen. I’m sure I will do wonderfully… I hope.
I got to the school and walked into my classroom of first graders. They all stared at me as if I was some alien being, freshly arrived, but at least they seemed quiet and well behaved. I began to dig around in my bag to set up my posters for my lesson, and realized as I stared into my bag with a sinking heart that I had left a pile of pictures and lesson vocabulary (including the words to the brush your teeth song) on my desk back at work. Oh crap. Ummm, time for plan B: improvisation.
I proceeded to fake my way through my healthy teeth lesson with a lot of “ums” and enthusiasm, hoping it would compensate for my lack of materials and correct word choice. I’m not sure if it worked. There was a point where I was pointing to the picture of molars, asking the first graders “what is that?” repeatedly, while all of them gave me blank stares and refused to answer. The sad thing is that I was asking them because I didn’t know the word for molar, not because I was testing their knowledge. In the end I just used the word “molar” and hoped they got the general point. It definitely could have gone better. All I know is that when the hour was up, I felt a bit like a performing circus monkey who was ready to go on coffee break. How do teachers do this every day for six hours?
The shot auditors gave me smiles on the way out, but they were less like “way to go” smiles, and more like the sympathetic smile you would give someone who just fell down the stairs. Headfirst. Sigh. I am so good at impressing people in positions of authority. I see a great career as a Turkmen teacher in my future.
Maybe I’ll do better next time? I hope there is a next time.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
The Week of New Stuff
Lots of stuff started this week; some of it was good stuff. One not-so-new concept was my teaching (or lack thereof) in the schools. There was heat this week, and students, but for some reason I didn’t get to teach. I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps I’m simply not meant to teach in the schools. No one showed for my pregnancy class either. Hopefully once Bagila gets back from her vacation she can help to initiate some of this stuff again. Anyways, I digress. New stuff.
I got a new coat. This is somewhat funny, because I really didn’t need one at all. My parents had bought me a new down jacket right before I left for Turkmenistan. It was holding up against the cold really well, but my vanity led me to seek out an auxiliary wintry weather cover. All of the women in Dashoguz have these long wool coats with fur around the cuffs and collar. They’re beautiful. Everyone wears them, and they all look so polished and put together walking around in their pretty coats. I couldn’t help it; I had to have one. Besides, they tell us we’re supposed to “blend in” don’t they? I’m sure this includes purchasing a 4-million manat jacket. (it’s about $200, I know, kind of pricey for my salary, but I had to do it) The jacket is “oran owadan” (very beautiful) and it makes me happy every time I put it on, so I feel like it was a worthwhile purchase. I’ll show you pictures…
We’re also planning a new variety of meeting, a Dashoguz-wide health volunteer collaboration. I’m really excited about it. Alice, Noah, Gahmya, and myself are planning on getting together in late February to talk about successes and failures thus far in our community health education efforts. I think it will be a good chance to get some new ideas and do some problem solving. They always say that four heads are better than one, and I KNOW that four people’s Turkmen is better than mine alone. I’m also really excited to meet Gahmya. She’s the only remaining health volunteer in Dashoguz from the T-15 group, and I’m hoping she can serve as the voice of experience for us newbies.
Oh, I also got my first salary from the bank. This was a particularly exciting experience, because it involved me going into the city on a workday. Lots of fun. I met up with Alice and Noah, and the three of us went to the post office (where I got my first mail from America!!), the bank, and the internet café (which worked a little bit). The highlight of the day (by far) was getting to talk to my family. I had them call me at one of the city volunteer’s houses, and we talked to each other for a half hour. I gave them a little bit of an update on my status quo, and they told me about Alaska life. Aaah. It’s good to hear from civilization.
I got a new melon too. Melons are really big here. Turkmenistan has amazingly tasty melons, and they have a ton of different kinds in the summer, but I didn’t realize that they also have winter melons. This was an awesome discovery since I had it in the form of a first-person encounter with one such melon. I was sitting in my office at the clinic, doing my thing, when this man from the village randomly appears in my office door holding what I assumed was a rotten melon that looked like it had been dropped down a flight of stairs. It was funny colored and wrinkled and misshapen. At first I thought he was trying to sell it to me, but after a few minutes of “guess that Uzbek word” I realized he was giving it to me as a gift. Oh… how nice…? I set it on my windowsill, with no intention of seeing how rotten it must be on the inside (if its exterior was any indication, it was bad news). It stayed there until one of my nurses came in and got all excited upon seeing it. She immediately ran and got the other nurses, along with a big knife, and all of them came trooping in to eat (?!?!) the rotten melon. I figured Turkmen must get desperate for fruit when its wintertime.
Ten minutes later, the melon had been sliced and diced, and to my surprise it was white on the inside, kind of the same color as a banana. It didn’t look rotten at all. I was still a little apprehensive about taking my first bite, but once I did, I couldn’t get enough; it was phenomenal. It was sweet, almost like cotton candy, and super juicy. It was like this crazy flavor explosion in my mouth, a welcome reprieve after all of the fat and salt I’d been eating so far this winter. So now you know, Turkmenistan has winter melons and they are faaabulous.
Hmmm, other new things… oh yes, there are new residents in our house. Of the parasitical variety. My boyfriend has tapeworms.
Now in case you’re just joining us, a quick update is in order. No I am not actually dating anyone in Turkmenistan, but I have managed to meet the love of my life in cat-form. He is a little brown and white tabby cat and I have named him Puffy (P-Diddy for short). Tuesday night, Puffy and I were relaxing in bed and reading a Nicholas Sparks novel when I looked down and realized Puffy had some sort of stray fuzzy particle attached to his fur. As I reached down to grab it off of him and flick it away, his stray fuzzy started to wiggle. It was about a centimeter long, white, flat, and definitely a portion of a tapeworm. I thought I was going to throw up.
After taking several calming breaths and throwing Puffy out of my bedroom, I conducted a thorough search of my bed and surrounding areas for any worms that may have escaped from Puffy. Didn’t see any, but slept fitfully dreaming of a worm-infestation in my intestines. Yyyegggch. The next morning at work, I looked up tapeworms and learned that they can grow up to 2 meters long (this is more than six feet), and that they will typically live in a person or animal’s intestines, for years sometimes, and that little segments will occasionally crawl out of the anus, independently of the main worm. If the host-person or host-animal that the worm is living in should die, the whole worm will crawl out. Doesn’t that make your skin crawl, thinking about a six-foot worm crawling out of a dead person’s butt? Oh man, I really hope that I don’t have worms from Puffy. Gross, gross, gross.
I got a new coat. This is somewhat funny, because I really didn’t need one at all. My parents had bought me a new down jacket right before I left for Turkmenistan. It was holding up against the cold really well, but my vanity led me to seek out an auxiliary wintry weather cover. All of the women in Dashoguz have these long wool coats with fur around the cuffs and collar. They’re beautiful. Everyone wears them, and they all look so polished and put together walking around in their pretty coats. I couldn’t help it; I had to have one. Besides, they tell us we’re supposed to “blend in” don’t they? I’m sure this includes purchasing a 4-million manat jacket. (it’s about $200, I know, kind of pricey for my salary, but I had to do it) The jacket is “oran owadan” (very beautiful) and it makes me happy every time I put it on, so I feel like it was a worthwhile purchase. I’ll show you pictures…
We’re also planning a new variety of meeting, a Dashoguz-wide health volunteer collaboration. I’m really excited about it. Alice, Noah, Gahmya, and myself are planning on getting together in late February to talk about successes and failures thus far in our community health education efforts. I think it will be a good chance to get some new ideas and do some problem solving. They always say that four heads are better than one, and I KNOW that four people’s Turkmen is better than mine alone. I’m also really excited to meet Gahmya. She’s the only remaining health volunteer in Dashoguz from the T-15 group, and I’m hoping she can serve as the voice of experience for us newbies.
Oh, I also got my first salary from the bank. This was a particularly exciting experience, because it involved me going into the city on a workday. Lots of fun. I met up with Alice and Noah, and the three of us went to the post office (where I got my first mail from America!!), the bank, and the internet café (which worked a little bit). The highlight of the day (by far) was getting to talk to my family. I had them call me at one of the city volunteer’s houses, and we talked to each other for a half hour. I gave them a little bit of an update on my status quo, and they told me about Alaska life. Aaah. It’s good to hear from civilization.
I got a new melon too. Melons are really big here. Turkmenistan has amazingly tasty melons, and they have a ton of different kinds in the summer, but I didn’t realize that they also have winter melons. This was an awesome discovery since I had it in the form of a first-person encounter with one such melon. I was sitting in my office at the clinic, doing my thing, when this man from the village randomly appears in my office door holding what I assumed was a rotten melon that looked like it had been dropped down a flight of stairs. It was funny colored and wrinkled and misshapen. At first I thought he was trying to sell it to me, but after a few minutes of “guess that Uzbek word” I realized he was giving it to me as a gift. Oh… how nice…? I set it on my windowsill, with no intention of seeing how rotten it must be on the inside (if its exterior was any indication, it was bad news). It stayed there until one of my nurses came in and got all excited upon seeing it. She immediately ran and got the other nurses, along with a big knife, and all of them came trooping in to eat (?!?!) the rotten melon. I figured Turkmen must get desperate for fruit when its wintertime.
Ten minutes later, the melon had been sliced and diced, and to my surprise it was white on the inside, kind of the same color as a banana. It didn’t look rotten at all. I was still a little apprehensive about taking my first bite, but once I did, I couldn’t get enough; it was phenomenal. It was sweet, almost like cotton candy, and super juicy. It was like this crazy flavor explosion in my mouth, a welcome reprieve after all of the fat and salt I’d been eating so far this winter. So now you know, Turkmenistan has winter melons and they are faaabulous.
Hmmm, other new things… oh yes, there are new residents in our house. Of the parasitical variety. My boyfriend has tapeworms.
Now in case you’re just joining us, a quick update is in order. No I am not actually dating anyone in Turkmenistan, but I have managed to meet the love of my life in cat-form. He is a little brown and white tabby cat and I have named him Puffy (P-Diddy for short). Tuesday night, Puffy and I were relaxing in bed and reading a Nicholas Sparks novel when I looked down and realized Puffy had some sort of stray fuzzy particle attached to his fur. As I reached down to grab it off of him and flick it away, his stray fuzzy started to wiggle. It was about a centimeter long, white, flat, and definitely a portion of a tapeworm. I thought I was going to throw up.
After taking several calming breaths and throwing Puffy out of my bedroom, I conducted a thorough search of my bed and surrounding areas for any worms that may have escaped from Puffy. Didn’t see any, but slept fitfully dreaming of a worm-infestation in my intestines. Yyyegggch. The next morning at work, I looked up tapeworms and learned that they can grow up to 2 meters long (this is more than six feet), and that they will typically live in a person or animal’s intestines, for years sometimes, and that little segments will occasionally crawl out of the anus, independently of the main worm. If the host-person or host-animal that the worm is living in should die, the whole worm will crawl out. Doesn’t that make your skin crawl, thinking about a six-foot worm crawling out of a dead person’s butt? Oh man, I really hope that I don’t have worms from Puffy. Gross, gross, gross.
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